1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for reconstructing a map of an environment surrounding a wireless device, so as to allow a user of the device to locate his/her own position within said environment.
The present invention also relates to a wireless device implementing such a method.
2. Present State of the Art
Various systems are known in the art which are finalized to localize a device, and hence its user, within a certain environment (e.g. public buildings, shopping centres, museums, town halls, hospitals).
More in particular, such systems are based mainly on information deriving from communication between a radio frequency reader, built in the device, and a plurality of radio frequency identifiers (i.e. RFID tags), arranged within the environment according to a predetermined layout.
Such tags include information about their own position, which information is transmitted to a local server.
In order to be able to operate, therefore, these systems require the device to be connected to a network (whether a local area network or a wide area network) and to know the URL address of the server to which the information about the positions of the radio frequency tags are sent.
As an alternative, for example, it is known from Japanese patent application no. JP 2007-235496 to download data of a map of an environment from a server to a memory of the device, although this clearly implies problems related to periodic updating and to the necessity for the device to be in a known environment, since its use in unknown environments is not conceivable.
Furthermore, the methods currently available cannot provide the user with visual indications about the type of the elements (exits, corridors, rooms) present in the surrounding environment, which indications are often necessary for reaching a given destination; to this end, one must still use paper maps or indications available on the premises.